"Like the Main-Travelled Road of Life, it is traversed by many
classes of people."

UNCLE ETHAN had a theory that a man's character could be told
by the way he sat in a wagon seat.

"A mean man sets right plumb in the middle o' the seat, as much as
to say, 'Walk, goldarn yeh, who cares!' But a man that sets in the
corner o' the seat, much as to say, 'Jump in--cheaper t' ride 'n to
walk,' you can jest tie to."

Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger, therefore,
before he came opposite the potato patch, where the old man was
"
bugging his vines." The stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of
calico ponies, hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat
on the extreme end of the seat, with the lines in his right hand,
while his left rested on his thigh, with his little finger gracefully
crooked and his elbows akimbo. He wore a blue shirt, with
gay-colored armlets just above the elbows, and his vest hung
unbuttoned down his lank ribs. It was plain he was well pleased
with himself.

As he pulled up and threw one leg over the end of the seat, Uncle
Ethan observed that the left spring was much more worn than the
other, which proved that it was not accidental, but that it was the
driver's habit to sit on that end of the seat.

"Good afternoon," said the stranger pleasantly.

"Good afternoon, sir."

"Bugs purty plenty?"

"Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum."

"Early Rose?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs.

"No; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early Rose is over near the
house. The old woman wants 'em near. See the darned things!" he
pursued, rapping savagely on the edge of the pan to rattle the bugs
back.

"How do yeh kill 'em--scald 'em?"

"Mostly. Sornetimcs I

"Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger listessly.

"That's barley."

"So 'tis. Didn't notice."

Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He had some pots
of black paint in the wagon and two or three square boxes.

"What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a second term?"
continued the man, as if they had been talking politics all the
while.

"That's so--it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in second terms
myself," the man hastened to say.

"Is that your new barn acrosst there?" be asked, pointing with
his whip.

"Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man proudly. After years of
planning and hard work he had managed to erect a little wooden
barn, costing possibly three hundred dollars. It was plain to be seen
he took a childish pride in the fact of its newness.

The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said as his
eyes
wandered across its shining yellow broadside.

Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge
of his pan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened.

"Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn?" the stranger
continued, putting his locked hands around one knee and gaining
away across the pigpen at the building.

"What kind of a sign? Goldarn your skins!" Uncle Ethan pounded
the pan with his paddle and scraped two or three crawling
abominations off his leathery wrist.

It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed unusually
loath to attend to business. The tired ponies slept in the shade of
the lombardies. The plain was draped in a warm mist and
shadowed by vast, vaguely defined masses of clouds--a lazy June
day.

"Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his
abstraction with a start and resuming his working manner. "The
best bitter in the market." He alluded to it in the singular. "Like
to
look at it? No trouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he went
on hastily, seeing Uncle Ethan's hesitation.

He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a bottle for
pickled onions. It had a red seal on top and a strenuous caution in
red letters on the neck, "None genuine unless 'Dodd's Family
Bittem' is blown in the bottom."

"Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing at the side,
where; in an inverted pyramid, the names of several hundred
diseases were arranged, running from "gout" to "pulmonary
complaints," etc.

"Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as she'd like this kind.
We ain't been sick fr years. Still, they's no tellln'," he added,
seeing the answer to his objection in the agent's eyes. "Times is
purty close too, with us, y' see;; we've just built that stable--"

'Say I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger, waking up and
speaking in a warnily generous tone. "I'll give you ten bottles of the
bitter if you'll let me paint a sign on that barn. It won't hurt the
barn a bit, and if you want 'o you can paint it Out a year from date.
Come, what d'ye say?"

"I guess I hadn't better."

The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but in
reality he was thinking of what his little old wife would say.

"It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save you fifty
dollars this comin' fall. You can't tell."

Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan didn't follow. His
voice had a confidential purring sound as he stretched across the
wagon seat and talked on, eyes half shut. He straightened up at last
and concluded in the tone of one who has carried his point:

"So! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty five bottles y'rself,
why! sell it to your neighbors. You can get twenty dollars out of it
easy, and still have five bottles of the best family bitter that ever
went into a bottle."

It was the thought of this opportunity to get a buffalo skin coat that
consoled Uncle Ethan as he saw the hideous black letters
appearing under the agent's lazy brush.

It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. The
agent was forced to mop his forehead with his sleeve.

"Say, hain't got a cookie or anything, and a cup o' milk, handy?" he
said at the end of the first enormous word, which ran the whole
length of the barn.

Uncle Ethan got him the milk and oookie, which he ate with an
exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated meanwhile on the
staging which Uncle Ripley had helped him to build. This lunch
infused new energy into him, and in a short time "DODD'S
FAMILY BITTERS, Best in the Market," disfigured the
sweet-smelling pine boards.

Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk when
his wife came home.

"Who's been a-paintin' on that barn?" she demanded, her beadlike
eyes flashing, her withered little face set in an ominous frown.
"
Ethan Ripley, what you been doin'?"

"Nawthin'," he replied feebly.

"Who painted that sign on there?"

"A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on there, and I let
'im; and it's my barn anyway. I guess I can do what I'm a min' to
with it," he ended defiantly; but his eyes wavered.

Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the sun p'sessed
you to do such a thing as that, Ethan Ripley? I declare I don't see!
You git fooler an' fooler cv'ry day you live, I do believe."

Uncle Ethan attempted a defense.

"Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway."

"Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news.

"Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles--"

Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! Ethan
Ripley--wal, you beat all I ever see!" she added in despair of
expression. "I thought you had some sense left; but you hain't, not
one blessed scimpton. Where is the stuff?"

"Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. I've
known you to buy things you didn't need time an' time an' agin--tins
an' things, an' I guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you
paid for that illustrated Bible,"

"Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man in my
life. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles." She glared out at
the 'sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen window.

Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the
floor of the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it
like a cautious cat.

"Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take.
What'd you think you was goin' to do with it?" she asked in
poignant disgust.

"I expected to take it--if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He
defiantly stood his ground, towering above her like a leaning
tower.

"The hull cartload of it?"

"No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat--"

"Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'il buy that sick'nin' stuff
but an
old numskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this 'minute!
Take it right down to the sinkhole an' smash every bottle on the
stones."

Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old
woman addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her
grandson, who stood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an
intruding pullet.

"Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't
keep a watch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought that
lightnin'-rod man had glve him a lesson he'd remember; but no, he
must go an' make a reg'lar--"

She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in
the matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet.
Uncle Ethan went about the house like a convict on shipboard.
Once she caught him looking out of the window.

"I should think you'd feel proud o' that."

Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent and
bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the
matter with him.

He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded,
because he had determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning,
after his chores were done, he put on his best coat of faded
diagonal, and was brushing his hair into a ridge across the center
of his high, narrow head when Mrs. Ripley carne in from feeding
the calves.

"Where you goin' now?"

"None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I
can't stir
without you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tukey?"

"Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take him off this mornin'
now! I don't care where you go."

"Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin' about takin' him
off."

"Wal, take y'rseif off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't goin'
to get
no supper."

Ripley took a water pail, and put four bottles of "the bitter mto it,
and trudged away up the road with it in a pleasant glow of hope.
All nature seemed to declare the day a time of rest and invited men
to disassoeiate ideas of toil from the rustling green wheat, shining
grass, and tossing blooms. Something of the sweetness and
buoyancy of all nature permeated the old man's work-calloused
body, and he whistled little snatches of the dance tunes he
played on his fiddle.

But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another variety
of bitter, which was all he needed for the present. He qualified his
refusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shoats,
in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: "I guess I'll
haf t' be gom'; I want 'o git up to Jennings' before dimier."

He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings
away. The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a
"
newcomer." He was sitting on the horse trough, holding a horse's
halter, while his hired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot
on the animal's shoulder.

After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.

"Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's anything the
matter with me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple bark and
bourbon! That fixes me."

Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling
now. At the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside
the fence and went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his
bare feet, buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He
was dressing to go out.

"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute,
an' I'll be out."

When he came out, fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him.

"Say, what d' you think o' paytent med--"

"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'."

"What d' ye think o, Dodd's--"

"Best in the market."

Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went
on:

"Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've tried
it. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good--"

"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"

Doudney turned and faced him.

"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o sell" Ripley glanced
up at Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family
Bitters." He was stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all and roared.

"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.
Ho-ho-ho-har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you
git?"

"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan as he turned and made
off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.

On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden.
Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he
practically gave up the struggle. Everybody he met seemed
determined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he
began lying about it.

"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"

"Goose eggs fr settin'."

He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his
debts, and he would oniy promise fifty cents "on tick" for the
bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this questionable sale
cheered him up not a little.

As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry, he climbed
over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn and
slunk into the house without looking back.

He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a
Democratic poster to be pasted there.

The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign
wriggling across the side of the barn like boa constrictors hung on
rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man
seemed to come back with a sheriff and savagely warned him to let
it stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the agent
seemed to know every time he brought out the paint pot, and he
was no longer the pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico
ponies.

As he stepped out into the yard next morning that abominable,
sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed
his glance--it blotted out the beauty of the morning.

Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat,
a wisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the
back of her head.

"Lovely, ain't it! An' J've got to see it all day long. I can't look
out
the winder, but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make
her savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New
York. "I hope you feel satisfied with it."

Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean sweet newness
was gone. He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped
off, but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken
delight in having his neighbors turn and look at the building, now
he kept out of sight whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn
away in the back of the field, when he should have been bugging
potatoes by the roadside.

Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself
in check for several days. At last she burst forth:

"Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin'
to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will. I'm
just about crazy with it."

"But, Mother, I promised--"

"I don't care what you promised, it's got to be painted out. I've got
the nightmare now, seein' it. I'm goin' to send for a pail o' red paint,
and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to
do it."

"I'll tend to it, Mother, if you won't hurry me--"

"I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out
the winder."

Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town,
where he tried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the
county, however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of
red paint, not daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.

"Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant with friendly
interest.

Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face
was grave and kindly.

"Wal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready for
bed, he was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed off
two or three times she began to wonder why he didn't come When
the clock struck ten, and she realized that he had not stirred, she
began to get impatient. "Come, are y' goin' to sit there all night?"
There was no reply. She rose up in bed and looked about the
room. The broad moon flooded it with light, so that she could see
he was not asleep in his chair, as she had supposed. There was
something ominous in his disappearance.

"Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh?" There was no reply to her
sharp call. She rose and distractedly looked about among the
furniture, as if he inight somehow be a cat and be hiding in a
corner somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy slept, her
hard little heels making a curious tunking noise on the bare boards.
The moon fell across the sleeping hoy like a robe of silver. He was
alone.

She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. An sorts of
vague horrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had the
mist of sleep in her brain.

She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. The
katydids were singing in infinite peace under the solemn splendor
of the moon. The cattle sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now
and then, and the chickens in the coop stirred uneasily as if
overheated. The old woman stood there in her bare feet and long
nightgown, horror-stricken. The ghastly story of a man who had
hung himseif in his barn because his wife deserted him came into
her mind and stayed there with frightful persistency. Her throat
filled chokingly.

She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realization of
how dear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face and ready
smile. Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was at the point
of bursting into a wild cry to Tewksbury when she heard a strange
noise. It came from the barn, a creaking noise. She looked that way
and saw in the shadowed side a deeper shadow moving to and fro.
A revulsion to astonishment and anger took place in her.

"Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect old
idiot, in the night."

Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering
down the path, and was startled by her shrill voice.

"Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"

He made two or three slapping passes with the brush and then
snapped out, "I'm a-paintin' this barn--whaddy ye s'pose? II ye had
eyes y' wouldn't ask."

"Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin'
so?"

"You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm a-doin'.
You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." He dabbed
his brush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above
her in shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.

Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't
you comin' in?"

"No--not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business.
Don't stan' there an' ketch cold."

She moved off slowly toward the house. His shout subdued her.
Working alone out there had rendered him savage; he was not to
be pushed any further. She knew by the tone of his voice that he
must now be respected.

She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and came back where he
was working, and took a seat on a sawhorse.

"I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," she
said
in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.

"Wal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply, but each
felt a furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in silence. The
boards creaked heavily as he walked to and fro, and the slapping
sound of the paint brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of
the night. The majestic moon swung slowly round the corner of the
barn and fell upon the old man's grizzled head and bent shoulders.
The horses inside could be heard stamping the mosquitoes away
and chewing their hay in pleasant chorus.

The little figure seated on the sawhorse drew the shawl closer
ahout her thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her hands
were wrapped in her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious tone.

"Wal, I don't know as you was so very much to blame. I didn't want
that Bible myself--I hold out I did, but I didn't."

Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented
surrender penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.

"Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I'ye covered up the most of it,
anyhow. Guess we better go in."